Another Keiretsu War Story comes in…. another startup that says it 95% service providers! #keiretsu
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: [REMOVED]
Date: Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 2:25 PM
Subject: Another Keiretsu War Story
To: jason@
Thanks for taking on the “big guys”. I wanted to share with you my
experience with K4. In [DATE REMOVED], I payed $4500 to present to all
4 [LOCATION REMOVED] chapters. The “normal” rate would have been $7500
- but because this was [MONTH REMOVED], I was able to negotiate with
K4 because attendance was going to be a bit less than normal. They
still guaranteed that I will present to full room – with internet
access (which was critical for my presentation) – and that over 50% of
those present will be accredited investors – not service providers. I
presented to 3 groups (some were as tiny as 9 people) and almost 95%
of those present were service providers who wanted to sell me their
services!.. – and only 1 out of the 4 “venues” had internet access. Also, they represented that they would follow up with all the
interested investors and send me the list of emails so that I could
contact them. Out of that list a number of emails were incorrectly
collected by K4 (mis-spelled, incomplete, etc.), and most we’re not
from investors – but again, from service providers… Not surprising,
since there were very few investors actually present. When I complained about the fraud and asked for my money back, the
answer was basically “you just didn’t like the outcome, tough luck!”.
I have no problem with presenting to investors and being politely or
in-politely rejected based on the merits of my business – I’ve done
that for many years. But this was a case of delivering a
“product/service” that was not as promised and frankly misleading and
very unprofessional. I had some friends in the group at the time and came to a couple more
meetings even after the event – but I developed such a disgust for the
operation, that I swore to not have anything to do with that group
again – I haven’t had any contact with them for about [YEARS REMOVED]
years now. Feel free to call me if you want more information on this and let me
know if there’s anything I can do to help this cause. Thanks and have a great weekend!
